Glossary of Jewelry Terms

• Akoya Pearl: Japanese saltwater pearl
• Baroque: Any irregular shaped pearl; a pearl that is not round.
• Carat: unit of weight measuring diamonds
• One carat: equals 100 points.
• Clarity: blemishes and inclusions interrupt the passage of light through a diamond.
• Blemishes: external and included scratches, nicks and naturals.
• Inclusions: internal and include mineral crystals, breaks and distortions in crystal structure.
• Clarity scale: ranges from FL (flawless) to I (imperfect).
• Cloud: grouping of white inclusions or pinpoints in a diamond that result in a milky or cloudy spot.
• Color: remaining light that an object does not absorb.
• Color scale: scale ranges from D (colorless) to Z (light yellow). These light yellow diamonds are not fancy color.
• Culet: flat facet that diamond cutters sometimes add at the bottom of a diamond's pavilion
• Cut: a well cut diamond, returns more light to the eye through the table.
• Round brilliant: standard shape for most diamonds and most other diamonds are merely derivatives of the round brilliant.
• Facet: smooth flat polished surface plane of a diamond.
• Feather: small fracture inside a diamond, usually caused by the pressure a diamond endured while forming. Feathers can be transparent or whitish.Most feathers pose no threat to the integrity of a diamond.
• Fluorescence: viewed under long wave ultraviolet light, a diamond has a colored glow. This is a natural occurrence. Not all diamonds have fluorescence. It can be used as an identifying characteristic for a stone.
• Girdle: "waist" of a diamond, the outer edge.
• Included Crystal:mineral crystal inside a diamond, often incorrectly called "carbon spots."
• Kasamiga Pearl: baroque pearls that grow in Lake Kasamiga, Japan. Good Kasamigas have a beautiful iridescence. These have become much more rare - the lake is polluted and producing fewer and fewer pearls.
• Keshi Pearl: Pearls that are formed when the oyster rejects and spits out the implanted nucleus before the culturing process is complete, or the implanted mantle tissue fractures and forms separate pearl sacs without nuclei. Keshi pearls do not have a nucleus.
• Pavilion: bottom part of a diamond, below the girdle.
• Plated: electroplating process is done to pieces made out of materials such as white gold, which need a rhodium coating to be bright white. Rhodium coats the piece in layers. This can also be done with yellow gold.
• Semi Mount: piece of finished jewelry, usually a diamond ring, without the center stone. Often a CZ is used as a placeholder in a semi mount.
• Table: flat top surface (facet) of a diamond.